


A Swan Is A Beautiful Creature

by wily_one24



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Emma, Dark One Emma AU, F/F, and by traces i mean a metric ton of it, jacqui builds crazy worlds again, may contain traces of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-26 10:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1684388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wily_one24/pseuds/wily_one24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ms Swan…”</p>
<p>Emma can see Rumple as his body crumpled to the ground, she can see him leaning on his cane in the middle of his shop, and most of all she can see him standing at the helm of the Jolly Roger, scaled and tinted and gleaning, crazed eyes, with pointed teeth and jagged fingernails. </p>
<p>“It’s just Emma now.” She gestures to the dagger, the four stark and decorative letters emblazoned on the blade- E-M-M-A - that promise the inevitable. Her voice is a whisper, meant for no one but herself and yet she is certain that the entire world can hear her. “A swan is a beautiful creature.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. I blame tumblr. In fact, I blame my three fic sounding boards (natasi, paintingoncobwebs and whiteknightswan) who begged and nagged and pestered me about this little plot bunny even though I refused to listen... and then prompted a teeny little ficlet about this world, which then caused a bunch of tumblr followers to then ~~demand~~ request more and more and then even more. Which then made my muse create this angst filled world of Emma pain. 
> 
> Yay?
> 
> The two original pieces, [ficlet one](http://wily-one24.tumblr.com/post/85191410977/dark-one-emma-regina-10) and [ficlet two](http://wily-one24.tumblr.com/post/85270104787/regina-emma-or-dark-one-emma-ill-leave-that-up-to), will be incorporated into the fic at some point, mostly intact although probably adjusted to flow within the narrative as it develops. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** Not mine, fics like these are why.

** A SWAN IS A BEAUTIFUL CREATURE **

A hospital is a poor place for a War Council. 

And yet here they are. All of them crowded into one room, as many as will fit, all her parents’ trusted friends and, apparently, advisors. There is a heavy silence that falls between the words spoken, the words declared, even the words yelled. A lot of accusations fly, a lot of tears have been shed, a lot of hopes have fallen dead and shrivelled on the ground at her feet. 

Emma bites her lip and looks through the glass window to the chairs outside. 

The weight of Henry’s stare leaves her breathless. He hadn’t wanted to leave them, of course he’d wanted to know what was going on, but she had been the loudest voice insisting he leave. She’s not ready for him to know yet, she doubts she’ll ever be ready for it. The only person willing to take him had been Hook. Hook, who had distanced himself the moment Rumplestiltskin’s body had fallen to the ground. He wants no part of this. 

She can’t bring herself to blame him. 

Snow’s eyes are rimmed red from the tears as she clutches her swaddled son to her chest. Emma cannot tell if they are tears from before they bought the child back or after. Either way, they are the tears of a parent who has lost a child. And, as always, it is Emma’s fault. 

Her fingers slide over steel, the sharpness of it, the cruelty of it, and she can barely believe the strength of it as a small line splits on her forefinger, welling with blood. Red blood. Human blood. Her blood. 

Murder has been suggested, and just as quickly shut down by both Snow and Charming. Imprisonment is next, a magic jail, fear runs heavy through the room, and it is Charming’s voice that shut that one down, several telling moments before his wife joins in. Emma bites her lip.

Control is agreed upon. Strict, unerring control. The real debate is who and Emma winces in her corner, at once crowded and isolated, as the majority suggest Snow and Charming. They are good rulers, they must be, for the land loves them. They are the epitome of true love and justice and good. 

And yet Emma feels the thread of fear. 

She stands up and a murmur of a cough rumbles out of her throat. 

It’s enough, the entire room falls silent and wide eyed, staring at her as if she will explode in a fiery homicidal ball of pain and terror. It’s a look she expects from Grumpy and Archie and Whale and most of the townspeople, it is not one she expects from her parents. 

At the end of the day, the decision is not theirs, no matter how much they want it to be and she walks to the only person in the room that is not afraid of her. The only person who has met her eyes for more than a second, even if it is with a knowing pity that galls her. 

Emma lifts the dagger and offers it to Regina. 

“Emma…” 

Regina’s voice falters in the quiet murmur of dissent that rumbles throughout the room. 

“You should have it.” She says, before she loses her courage. “I trust you.” 

That silences everyone, a heavy cloud of intensity sucking the oxygen from the room. As she lifts her eyes, Emma can see the ferocious stare of her son, the lanky teen emerging from the boy, intelligence shining from his eyes and she wishes, she hopes, she prays with everything she has that he has not put this together yet, cannot tell from the image alone what has happened. 

A soft, muffled, gurgled whimper comes from her brother. 

The only innocence in the room. 

“Ms Swan…”

The last vestiges of protest from Regina, but Emma lifts her hand and immediately the woman quietens, the words frozen in her throat. 

Emma can see Rumple as his body crumpled to the ground, she can see him leaning on his cane in the middle of his shop, and most of all she can see him standing at the helm of the Jolly Roger, scaled and tinted and gleaning, crazed eyes, with pointed teeth and jagged fingernails. 

“It’s just Emma now.” She gestures to the dagger, the four stark and decorative letters emblazoned on the blade- E-M-M-A - that promise the inevitable. Her voice is a whisper, meant for no one but herself and yet she is certain that the entire world can hear her. “A swan is a beautiful creature.”

***

She had been without her power for perhaps an hour, at most. 

Yet there is a veritable universe of difference between them. The cleanness of her old magic, the warmth of it, is vastly different from this cold, clawing pull that feels like a hand from a horror movie, crawling out of a freshly dug grave to drag her kicking and screaming underneath. 

Emma looks down at her hand, ignoring amused eyes and pushes energy through her fingertip; watches the icy blue flame sizzle. 

“And what do you plan to do with that?”

She looks up at the clicking sound of heels in surprise, spending so much energy avoiding the cells beyond she has forgotten to watch the door. 

“I have no idea.”

Neither she nor Regina believe she’s talking about the flame on her finger. 

“Are you sure you want me to have this?” Regina produces the dagger reluctantly, distastefully, as if the very thing disgusts her. “Nobody else does.”

Irritation sparks hot and furious inside her and its sudden power is harder to squash than it ever has been before. 

“Nobody else matters.”

_How could you let this happen?_ Snow had demanded. _What do you expect us to do now?_ Charming had practically shouted at her. _We were counting on you._ The rest of the town had mournfully declared. 

“This isn’t the end, Emma.” Regina’s voice is calm, despite the sorrow that weighs it down, free of the panic that surges like a growing tide in the rest of the people. “You don’t have to go down the same path he did.”

Emma clings with both hands to the desk in front of her. 

Her desk, for the briefest of times, before everything went to shit and she sailed to Neverland and then drove to New York for the fakest of lives. A desk for a Sheriff. A desk for a protector, a hero, a savior. Not a desk for wielder of the darkest magic known to their kind. 

“It wants me to.” The words are an admission, a secret, a terror she has yet to voice. “I can feel it already.”

“A lot of choices led him where he was.” The grief thickened voice comes from behind Regina and Emma watched Belle step into view. “And he made a lot of wrong ones.”

Emma meets red rimmed eyes for the countless time that day, but they are red rimmed with knowledge and understanding and their own grief, not with disappointment and failure and rejection yet again. 

“We can help you.” Regina steps further into her office and to the side, allowing space for Belle to enter, her body is calm and open and truthful. “Let us help you.”

The office was her escape, her need to be alone, and she doesn’t mind the introduction of Regina or even Belle, but their entry has left the door open. 

An amused, gleeful voice floats upon the air. 

“You can’t fight the darkness. You of all people should know that, Sis.”

“Zelena!” The calm seeps out of Regina as quickly as it had Emma hours before. “Please!”

But spite and defeat and imprisonment are never a good combination. 

“You can fight it as long as you want, Saviour.” Bitter and jealous and vengeful, the voice gets stronger, feeding on the havoc it’s creating. “But it will keep coming until you give in, so you might as well…”

The door slams shut on a breeze that Emma cannot say who bought forth. It could just as easily have been Regina as herself. Her hands are still clutching the desk and she looks down in horror at the cracks forming on the wood, splintering out from her glowing hands. 

“Don’t listen to her.” Belle attempts, soft voice turning steel with concern and purpose. “She’s trying to goad you.”

“Emma…” 

Regina tries, but her words fall short and flat, because the last thing she can ever offer false platitudes to is someone facing the temptation of darkness and power beyond measure. 

“You can’t keep me quiet!”

It’s muffled, but Zelena’s voice carries to them clear enough and if Emma looks up she can see smugness and delight in bright green eyes staring at her. 

“You can do this, Emma.” 

Regina keeps saying her name, softly and calmly, like she’s a spooked animal about to go off at any moment. 

“You know I’m right!”

“Be quiet.” And she almost is, a voice deadly soft that carries through the office to the cells, a wave of menace that rolls through the building and out to the street. “Shut her up, somebody shut her up.”

It’s heat that builds, like a fever burning from the inside out; an anger stronger than she has ever felt it before. It eclipses anything she thought she ever felt as human, minimalizes all of it, until it’s all she can feel and she has absolutely no hope of controlling it. 

“Emma.” Regina calls her name again, sounding so much further away even though she has stepped closer, leaned over the desk, her face pushed up close. “Emma, listen to me, okay?”

She can see everything and concentrate on nothing. Belle, turning around to plead with Zelena. The coffee pot that needs to be filled. The file cabinet missing a key. The exit sign that blinks. The leaves blowing in a snowy mush on the ground outside. The greyness of the sky. The entire town crumbling under the pressure of their Saviour turned foe. 

If she closes her eyes, her mind is a universe of detail and she feels like she’s looking at a Where’s Waldo book of crazy details that blur into a swirl of colors that make no sense. No sense at all. 

Hands cover hers and the heat that explodes between them sounds like Zelena screaming. 

“You can stop it, Emma.” Regina’s voice comes over the buzz of everything and nothing in her brain. “Emma. Listen to me, Emma. It’s like we learned before, okay?”

“I… I… I…” Her voice crackles, deeper and more sinister than she’s ever heard it before. “I… I… can’t… I… no. No…”

Zelena is still screaming and Emma cannot take her eyes off Regina’s face to see what is happening. 

“Calm down, Emma.” Despite the pin point of panic in her eyes, Regina remains steadfast and calm and collected. “It’s all based on emotion. You can do it.”

The desk between them splits in two and her hands are immediately grabbed in softer, cooler ones as the wood crashes to either side. 

“Emma.” She grasps at it, eyes burning holes into Regina’s, needs Regina’s voice. “Pull it back in, Emma, imagine it like a fishing reel. Wind it back up. You can do it.”

Her teeth are clenched and her breath is almost hissing between them at the effort, but she tries to focus, tries to do exactly as Regina asks, and finally, finally… 

The heat is gone. 

Zelena stops screaming. 

And Regina breathes in deeply like she was the one struggling to catch her breath. 

Emma blinks, shakes her head free, and moans at the realization of the damage she has just caused. 

“Why?” It’s more desolation than accusation. “Why didn’t you use the dagger?”

The hands holding hers let go, gently and softly, more like a release than an escape. 

“I wanted to see if…” Regina pauses and gives a sad, sad smile. “I wanted you to see that you could do it yourself.”

She waits a count of five in her head, the absolute confusion of seeing everything gone in a clarity of the here and now and immediate only. 

“Is she…? Is she still…?”

Regina does not even have to look over her shoulder. 

“She’s still alive.”

***

There is something peaceful and familiar and quiet and just _right_ about the weight in her arms as Regina bounces slightly on her toes without thinking about it. 

Baby Neal gives a small gurgle and his eyelids crinkle and Regina cannot help but smile. She is warm in a way that floods her, calms her, takes her back twelve years and makes her yearn. It soothes the ragged nerves that have been flaying her alive all day, from the barn to the hospital and all the way into Emma’s office and back again. 

“He’s beautiful.” 

Her voice is thick and loving and lovely, the way she never ever thought it would be with this woman as she looks up into the star struck eyes of Snow. She has no words, it’s not that they’ve come to this place of friendship and trust and family after so many years of hatred. It’s not that there’s new life to start everything afresh, the special pure form of magic that only babies hold. 

It’s swirls of blue and red and yellow, circling each other, dancing along the edges, his entire essence of blue light combining with the pure red of her heart. 

Rumple is gone and Charming may or may never feel it, or recognise it if he did, but she can feel the traces of it still. She wonders if the child ever will. 

“He’s a miracle.” Snow breathes, awestruck and completely in love. “He’s… he’s so…”

Regina fixes her with a direct stare. 

“Lucky.” She insists, even as Snow’s eyes nervously glance away and back again. “He is lucky. Zelena is powerless and Rumplestiltskin is gone. There is no more danger here for now.”

Her hip slides onto the end of the bed and she could, she could because she is so very close already, make this an accusation, but she settles herself near Snow’s toes and tries very hard to keep her voice neutral. 

“So I have to wonder why you called me here.”

Neal’s little baby bow mouth puckers in his sleep and Regina nearly purrs down at him. 

They are alone, the three of them; two old enemies and a baby. Snow has requested this impromptu meeting and ensured that they have no interruptions and Regina is afraid she knows the reason why, her stomach is a mix of dread and disappointment and the knowledge that this is frustratingly par for the course. 

“I… I…” Snow is dragging it out, hesitating, trying to make Regina say the words, but she won’t. She’ll force Snow to utter them, profane the day if she must. “I… I was hoping you could resurrect the barrier?”

Regina closes her eyes. 

“You foolish girl.” Carefully, gently, she opens her eyes and presses the little bundle back into Snow’s confused arms. “You will never, ever learn.”

She stands up and walks towards the door. 

“Your son is the last person that will ever need protection from your daughter. It is your daughter that needs protection.” With this she meets Snow’s eyes again, her mind full of images of Emma’s distraught face as the reality was explained to her, as she crumpled in the corner of the hospital room afraid to meet her mother’s eyes, the desperation as she tried to regain control of herself, the guilt and self-loathing that washed over her, and Regina is ready to deliver the blow. “From you.”

“I am her mother!”

It comes, expected, offended and outraged, unthinking from red lips. Too quickly to mean anything. And it is the last straw. 

“You are just another parental figure in her life ready to throw her aside for something new.”

Snow is half out of the bed before the babe in her arms wakes and complains, the arms around him obviously having tightened beyond comfort. 

“How dare you? How dare…?”

They said Regina was born to be Queen; that her spine learned to sit in the shape of a throne. Her etiquette was flawless, political savvy to be envied, her courtly graces admired across the land. She’d been sold into the royal marriage as a bargaining chip only, but few had known it. 

It comes across in moments like these, where Snow, raised for courtly life more than Regina ever was, is red faced and uncontrolled in her emotions whereas Regina stands still and blank faced, barely even blinking in the aftermath. 

The woman should thank her for her life in the forest and in Storybrooke, she never would have made it in the shark infested waters of the Royal Court. 

Perhaps it is Regina’s refusal to react, to lower herself to argument that makes Snow stop awkwardly, body half on and half off the bed. 

“I’ve done many things I’m not proud of in my life, one of which is invading Emma’s privacy to the point of gaining access to her files soon after she arrived in Storybrooke. All of her files. I can tell you right now, with absolute certainty, that you and Charming both are barely more than the last in a long line of parental figures that promised her a family and then took it back.”

Snow is ready to argue, it comes naturally, but she doesn’t and Regina breathes before continuing. 

“I was there, Snow. I was there in Neverland when Emma admitted to still feeling like an unwanted orphan and you promised to make her feel otherwise. How many minutes later were you declaring that it wasn’t good enough and you needed a _real_ child? To do things properly?”

Red faced, squalling and righteous is how she always pictures Snow, but the face before her now is draining of colour and turning pale. 

“Brain dead, simple minded Mary Margaret was a better mother to Emma before the curse broke than you have ever been, you need to admit that to yourself right now.”

There is a moment of silence before she is answered, Snow’s voice coming to her soft and hesitant and unbelieving. 

“Why?” A whisper. “Why are you doing this to me?”

She could almost laugh if it wasn’t so depressing. Everything always has and always will revolve around Snow. As if her sole purpose of this rant, the release of tension like steam from a saucepan, was to hurt the woman. To Snow, not for Emma. The thought hadn’t even crossed Snow’s mind. She can tell. 

“I spent the last hour with your daughter, talking her off a metaphorical magical ledge. She is not evil, Snow, she is still Emma. She is still in there. She has dark magic now, yes, power beyond her imagination, but Emma is still there.”

She was so close to freedom, so close to leaving the room without resorting to this, but the conversation has spiralled out of control. 

“She needs our help, now more than ever. You need to stop mourning your daughter, stop mourning the Saviour and start working to save Emma.”

“What differen…?”

But Regina doesn’t let her finish. Honestly, even she is surprised with the vehemence with which she is championing Emma. While there is always something she can find to be annoyed at Snow about, she is self-aware to know that they are mainly nitpicking for the sake of having something – anything – negative to think about the woman and she keeps them to herself. 

Today, however, today she is voicing her thoughts in a stream of unconscious words that she has no idea she’s been thinking. 

“Of course there’s a difference! And that’s the problem.” She looks at the new mother on the bed, her left arm wrapped securely around her son, her right hand hovering over the side of the bed for balance, her entire body curved in such a way as to scream safety and protection for the infant. “When was the last time you…? Hell, when was the last time _any_ of you told Emma she was worth anything, that you liked anything about her, needed her for anything other than what a good daughter or good saviour she is for you?”

Snow looks as if she has been slapped. 

“I… I…”

But the words don’t come, because there is no answer. 

“Emma’s not stupid. She knows that being the Dark One comes with dark powers, that her days of being a hero are limited. Whether you knew what you were doing or not, and I sincerely hope you didn’t, she also saw you when she was in the room before.”

At Snow’s wrinkled brow, Regina sighs. 

“You shielded that boy. You made sure Emma didn’t once see his face. She watched you choose him over her and I don’t even know if you realise how truly awful that is. She can’t be the Saviour and she can’t be your daughter, and you have spent the last two years making sure she believes that’s the only worth she has in this town.”

The defeated slump of Snow’s body tells Regina that her words have gotten through. She wants to tell herself that she’s this eager, this passionate, this knowledgeable about Emma because of Henry, because everything about Emma affects Henry. She wants to stay in that bubble where every time they get along they can quickly stammer how much it is for him. 

As if they cannot be nice to each other without him.

As if Regina doesn’t understand Emma all too well and knows her as a separate entity unto herself. 

“What do we do?”

“You understand the fact that she has dark powers now, but that she’s still Emma. The Emma you know and love is still in there and she can stay there if you help bring that out in her. Give the human in her a reason to stay.”

Regina gestures to the baby in Snow’s arms, Neal, the boy who wrapped himself around her heart and has still to let her go. 

“The one thing that always brings Emma out is family. No matter how much they hurt her.”

***

“Mom?”

Henry has a hundred different ways of saying that one word. Each one has a different meaning and there is never any confusion as to whether he is talking to her or Regina. The very wavering of inflection is enough to infuse it with so much more than entire speeches could. 

This one, this time, is shaky and scared and pleading with her to take it back. 

Emma hates this. It’s worse than having to tell Snow, worse than watching the realization fall over everyone’s face in that barn, Regina’s sympathetic horror, Charming’s denial, Hook’s revulsion. 

She didn’t want to tell him his grandfather was dead. She didn’t want to tell him she’d been the one to kill him. Or what that meant when she’d done it with his dagger. And yet here they are, with Henry’s eyes wide and begging, pleading, heartbroken with fading belief. 

The heart of the truest believer, his had been golden. 

Emma wonders what colour it is now that she’s told him the truth. 

“I don’t know.” She answers the unspoken question, that demand of what happens now, the need to hear that everything will be alright. “Henry, I don’t…”

Her hand shakes on her lap and she quickly covers it with the other one. 

“The magic is different.” She doesn’t even know why she’s telling him, other than words need to be said and these are the ones coming to her mouth. “It’s darker, needier, not like it was before, but… but I don’t feel the need to do stuff.”

Stuff, like eviscerate people or turn them into bugs to squash, make impossible deals that take the things people hold most dear and precious, to make people tremble at her feet. 

She doesn’t want to do any of that. 

But she’s so very afraid. 

“Dad ran away from his dad because of the dark power.” Henry says, his mind moving faster than his mouth, speaking in the middle of the thought without censorship. “Because he tried to get Rumplestiltskin to stop using it and he wouldn’t.”

It makes a sizzle of irritation spark over her spine and she shifts on the bench. 

“That must mean it _can_ be stopped.” He continues with a renewed spark of life, as if he’s not talking about the end of her life, as if he’s just found another goddamn _operation_ he can give a cute codename to. “And dad was only a little bit older than me, too.”

Emma bites her bottom lip and curls her hands into tight fists on her lap, the nails biting into her skin. 

“It’ll be like history repeating itself!” He’s fully into his plan now, excited. “Only this time, we’ll win, because you won’t turn evil like Rumple. I’ll be just like my dad!”

Her right hand opens of its own accord and slams down on the seat between them, the reverberation echoes like thunder across the water in front of the benches they’re sitting on and ripples surf the water all the way out to the sea. 

“You are nothing like your father!” Emma hisses, the words spitting out of her mouth without her consent. “Your father was a coward who ran from every problem he ever had!”

She can see it, even as the words come flowing out of her, she can see Henry splitting in two right in front of her. Half of him soaked in fear at this seething, vicious woman who has made the earth tremble around them and half broken at this venom she is unleashing over the man she has tried to build up in his eyes. 

“He was a man with several hundred years of living behind him that picked a vulnerable, emotionally stunted, underage teenaged girl off the street and used her until he was done with her, then set her up to take the fall for his crimes. The best thing your father ever did was get out of my life and he should have stayed gone!”

His father died a hero, she had told him that over and over again, and she wants desperately to stop this train wreck even as it happens, even as her brain is full of dank, grey images of prison walls and loneliness and the heavy ball of life in her belly. 

_Reel it in!_ Her brain manages to chant like a mantra. _Reel it in!_

Her inner voice, the one that doesn’t sound like a sibilant hissing snake, sounds a lot like Regina in front of her. 

“He was nothing! He was…”

Her voice catches and her eyes feel like they’re screaming. 

Henry gapes, looking almost close to tears, and she can tell by the pin point of his eyes on hers that he can see her inside, see her trying to stop whatever is happening and it kills her that he has to witness this. 

“Get.” It comes out hissing and hard and struggled. “Away.”

“Mo-om?” 

His voice catches in the worst way. 

“Get the fuck out of here, Henry.”

He visibly jerks at the word, the curse she has never uttered in front of him before let alone at him. And the way he stumbles backwards, legs folding in on themselves to get off the bench and away from the pier… 

It makes her close her eyes and clench her fists not to see it. 

“Mom!”

Henry now has a hundred and two different ways to say that word and this one is not for her. 

She feels it slide into her even as she trembles; a softness, a cool blue slide of gentle magic sliding over her.

“Stop me.” It’s a whisper, a plea, the begging of a desperate, desperate woman. “Regina, stop me.”

***

They sit across from each other in Regina’s study. 

It’s so close to being a mirror for the first night they met that it’s almost laughable. 

There’s a lot less alcohol and a whole lot more desperation. 

It’s not laughter so much as a crackling release of energy that bursts out of her. 

Emma thinks she’s past the point of hysteria. 

“Just what do you want me to do?” Regina’s voice is calm, too infuriatingly calm and open as she watches Emma with eagle sharp eyes. “When you ask me to stop you?”

There’s a challenge there, jumping out of Regina’s eyes. The dare to speak the truth that they both know. One they also both know Regina will never agree to. Regina is all at once too brave, too smart, too weak and too foolish to follow through with the most logical plan. 

“You have the dagger. Aren’t you supposed to give me orders?” It’s a cop out. “Can’t you just…?”

She makes a vague sweeping gesture in front of her and Regina merely shakes her head. 

“I’m not your keeper.” Still calm, calm enough to send Emma into a frenzy of irritation from anyone else, but from Regina it is an unwilling balm that she clings to. “I have no desire to follow you about and give you errands.”

She is going to make Emma be the one to say it. 

“There must be some way to kill me without using the dagger.”

Regina merely nods. 

“There are countless ways to kill you without the dagger. While you are functionally immortal in terms of age and health, you are still vulnerable to attacks on your person.”

Like explaining math out of Henry’s homework, like telling her the instructions from a box of Mac’n’Cheese. Like she’s not discussing things of such magnitude they make Emma’s head spin. 

“But you’re nowhere near close to needing to be killed.”

For a split second, she wonders where that point would be, given everything Rumple had ever done with impunity. 

“I lost control around Henry.”

The one thing she knows is important enough to warrant drastic measures. 

“Exactly.” Emma has to blink to catch up to Regina, to fully process what she’s saying. “You smacked a bench and you caused some waves. You lost control around him, not with him. You managed to hold yourself in, much better already than you were at the station.”

The rest of the words don’t come, but the images are there regardless, Zelena’s screams and the power that surged out of her body without her permission. Emma curls her legs in underneath her, her shoulders falling even further down, scrunching herself into a big ball. 

The sudden steely look in the woman’s eyes lends a comforting credence to the following words. 

“Make no mistake, Emma, you ever cross that line and you’ll be lucky if using the dagger to stop you is my only response.”

“Promise me.” Emma whispers it from underneath the curtain of hair that has fallen in her face. “Promise me you’ll kill me when the time comes.”

Her body screams defensive and protective and vulnerable, but her eyes are forceful and hot, she imagines she can see the reflection of light as pinpoints in Regina’s pupils. They must be glowing again. 

Regina nods. Her bottom lip is bitten underneath pearly white teeth and her expression clearly says it is not something she looks forward to. But this is why Emma gave her the dagger. She understands in ways that nobody else could. 

“If.” She insists. “I will kill you _if_ the time comes.”

It is the best offer she’s going to get and Emma closes her eyes to rest her head on her knees, arms wrapped around her shins. Not even here, under the cover of darkness, can she pretend that things haven’t gone horribly wrong. 

It’s almost worse, without the distraction of light and movement and people and Regina. With nothing but her thoughts and the constant pulsing rush of blood, the teasing tingle under her skin magnifies and calls to her and sears the very nerves of her body. 

“It’s darker.” Regina continues. “This magic, much darker than yours, but it runs on the same principles. It runs on your emotions. You can learn to control them. You already know the basics, you’ve covered them. This is no different.”

No different, Emma thinks, except that the power of true love never killed anyone. 

It never hurt her to use it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You don’t have to be okay with this.” The words hit her where they’re supposed to. “Nobody expects you to know what to do.”_
> 
> _It’s not true, of course. The entire town has always looked to her to solve their problems; it’s a no brainer to think they’ll expect her to solve her own. She’s their saviour and now she has to be her own._
> 
> _Heroes aren’t supposed to need saving themselves._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Been a while for this one, huh? It's been in the works. Short chapter, but it is what it is.

***

It starts slowly. 

Small, minuscule, barely even there. Nobody would notice; she barely even notices it herself. Compared to the last few days it is the proverbial drop in the ocean. 

Emma is tired and weary and strung so tightly she feels as if she might scream at any moment. She has done little; the job of Sheriff had been filled long before she returned from New York, she is the only big bad the town has right now, and her son is wary of spending any real time with her. Especially alone. Yet she feels flat and drained and ready to just stop existing. 

Her body falls face down on her bed, fully clothed, her nose smushed half on and half off the pillow. A low moan sounds in her throat as the encompassing feeling of sleep begins to pull her under. Darkness and sweet, sweet relief. 

Except that the light is on and the switch is all the way across the room. 

She should get up, she should open her eyes and sit up, take off the outer layers of her clothes at least and brush her teeth and do all the things that good, normal people do every night. But she is no longer good and she has never been normal. 

It’s barely even a thought as it is a reflex, lifting her forefinger and letting a small puff of air ricochet through the air. The switch clicks and darkness falls and Emma lets herself find the sleep that has eluded her for days. 

One little light switch. 

It was easy, it was harmless, it meant nothing. So small there wasn’t even a noticeable price. 

But Emma wakes guilty. She strips, shedding the quilt and her clothes like an outer skin, throwing them into the corner. The shower is long and hot and nowhere near as cleansing as she wants it to be. 

“Hey Emma!” Ruby’s smile is wide and bright and just a little too false when Emma finally makes it into the diner. “What can I get you?”

Already her nerves are on edge and she cannot look Ruby in the eye, so she shrugs. 

“I don’t know, what’s going?”

There is a sharpness to the air around them, a moment of silence and then the too forced sounds of people not listening in, people not watching every movement she makes. 

“Anything you want.” Ruby’s eyes are bright and water shine eager. “We can make anything.”

But Emma’s stomach sours and she takes a step back. 

“No, it’s okay, I don’t want…” The bell chimes behind her and she turns to see Charming step in, he’s tired and crinkled and sleep heavy, but eager to be on his way to the hospital. He’s probably not even thinking about her at all, but when his eyes meet hers all Emma can see is accusation. “… I’m not hungry.”

When she turns to flee, he reaches out and easily catches her, his hands on her arm. They’re soft and non threatening and no different than they were a week ago. Her father, her wonderful, understanding father. 

“Hey.” It’s a soothing rumble, at least it’s meant to be. “What’s up? What happened?”

_What’s up? What happened? What did you do?_

“Nothing!” It comes out like a squeak, the hiss of air trickling through a tight throat. “I didn’t do anything!”

When Emma feels backed into a corner, she needs space and freedom, running is her natural instinct. Hands that hold too tightly and won’t let her leave make her panic. But her father’s hands, wrapped around her elbow, not letting go… they don’t feel threatening. 

He pulls her to a corner booth and guides her to sit down, lifting a hand to gesture to Ruby. 

It’s not long before cups of hot chocolate and coffee sit in front of them. 

She eyes his coffee. It’s in a diner mug. Not a paper cup. 

“Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?”

“In time.” He’s unfazed and implacable as he looks straight in her eyes. “I ran into my daughter and I want to have breakfast with her.”

Emma has no reply. She lifts her own mug with shaking hands and takes a sip. Thick, creamy hot chocolate slides over her tongue and heats the skin of her throat. 

“I’m not hungry.” Her voice is weak and thin and it shakes harder than her hands, but she tries anyway. “Actually, I don’t know if I even have to eat anymore.”

He doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t reprimand her for her poor taste in humour either. He acts as if she hadn’t said anything at all. 

“You don’t have to be okay with this.” The words hit her where they’re supposed to. “Nobody expects you to know what to do.”

It’s not true, of course. The entire town has always looked to her to solve their problems; it’s a no brainer to think they’ll expect her to solve her own. She’s their saviour and now she has to be her own. 

Heroes aren’t supposed to need saving themselves. 

But this is her father and he’s unassuming when it comes to her. He always has been. He doesn’t come at her with expectations of how a daughter should be, of how a mother should be with her son, of how a sheriff a saviour a fairy tale princess needs to act. 

His phone beeps, but he doesn’t even pull it out of his pocket. 

“I want…”

Before she says another word, before her brain can even make sense of what she was about to say, the bell chimes above the door and Emma looks up without thinking. Her voice trails off when she sees Robin holding the door open with a flourish. Regina, Roland and Henry step through and the only thing Emma can see is the grateful smile on Regina’s face. The woman nods her head, a slight measured movement of familiarity, of synchronicity. Robin shrugs it off and lets go of the door, only to place his hand on the small of Regina’s back instead. 

As Henry leads Roland to a booth on the other side of the room, not looking up and not noticing Emma, all she can see is Regina’s smile growing wider, all teeth and lips and high trilling laughter and a casual greeting to Ruby and a head leaning slightly towards the man she loves. 

The mug in her hand shatters, bursting hot liquid all over her, hands and shirt and neck, over the table, mixed with sharp cutting shards of china. She feels the heat, she doesn’t feel the pain. 

“Emma!” Charming is instantly solicitous. “You’re bleeding. Are you okay?”

She closes her hand into a fist and watches a fat drop of blood squeeze its way out and then fall into a puddle of quickly cooling chocolate. Her eyes watch, fascinated and distant, as the thick plasma oozes and merges with the thinner dairy in an intricate pattern of unending fractals. 

“Emma?” There’s a voice next to her and a hand on her shoulder and concerned brown eyes looking down at her. “Are you alright?”

Regina has finally noticed her, but Emma stands quickly and jams both her hands into her jacket pocket, pushing past the woman rudely. 

Nobody moves to stop her, but everybody watches. 

***

The hospital is quiet in the mornings and all she has to do is walk through the door. Snow is there, her mother, she will understand. She will open her arms and welcome Emma and continue to love her the way Emma has wanted her entire life. 

Looking around the corner she can see into the room. Snow is calm and happy and relaxed, sitting up in the bed as she cradles the bundled little form to her chest. If Emma closes her eyes, she can almost hear a soft tune whispering through the air, a hum. Snow is humming to her sleeping son and she has never looked more at peace. 

She has certainly never had that expression for Emma. 

Emma, who was never truly her daughter, who can never be again now that she has been tainted. Emma, who has bought nothing but fear and disappointment and regret. If she steps into the room now, she will ruin the happy moment. 

She feels it like an itch on her skin, trembling, and when she looks down she can see tiny sparks of red crawling over her fingers. Magic. Power. Danger. 

Emma curls her hands back into fists and continues walking. 

***

She will never learn. 

She is a silly, stupid little girl who will never ever learn. Two years is a long stretch, probably the longest in her living memory, to have stayed in one place and grown attached and become comfortable. Three years is the longest, it says so in her file, but even that was temporary. 

Of course she is not a permanent piece of this place, this family, this… 

Of course it was temporary and now it’s definitely over. Now that her family, her friends, no longer have any use for her, now that she is an inconvenience, of course she is not wanted. 

She is no longer nine years old; she should have known not to have grown attached. 

“Emma?” He comes out of the blue; a gentle, familiar voice. “Are you alright?”

She looks down at her sparking hands, tiny red flashes like an electrical wire arcing. Her fingers stretch and flex out and back into fists as she shoves them into her jacket pocket again. It crackles under her skin, the most extreme case of pins and needles she’s ever had. 

“Hey Archie.” Her smile is weak and false and she knows he can tell as she turns to face him. “Fine, just fine. Thank you.”

His brow crinkles, but the rest of his face is blank. 

“I’m not sure that ‘fine’ can be applied to this situation, Emma.” Neutral and objective, it’s the trademark of his profession and she can see why. “My office is always open. I would be very happy to help in any way I can.”

Help. She can do nothing but bite her lip and look at the sky. 

“I don’t know what you’re going through, of course.” Without her response, Archie continues to fill up the silence with as many words as possible. “But sometimes an objective ear is the easiest one to speak to.”

There is a bird flying a hundred feet above their heads and if Emma concentrates hard enough, she can hear the air whistle through its feathers, into and out of its tiny bird lungs. He can’t understand that, he cannot even comprehend it. 

Her silence makes his pulse speed up and there must be something in her expression that makes his face fall so completely. 

“I don’t want to speak.” 

It almost hurts to let the words out, scorching and crackling through the skin of her throat like red hot coals.

“No, no.” He rushes to console her, even as his blood pumps harder, and there are no words to express how nauseating and confusing and _powerful_ it feels to her that she can hear it. “And that’s alright, too.”

“Archie.” His name is forced through her teeth like it hurts, because it does. She’s biting down on her back teeth, clenching her jaw shut hard, and her hands open and close in their fists inside her jacket pocket, hot and burning and aching. “You need to go somewhere else right now.”

“I will.” He is quick to reassure her. “I’ll go, but I want to remind you that I’m here. I can help with your emotions. I don’t judge. I’ve helped Regina…”

Her burst of laughter is sudden and hysterical. 

Regina. The woman is decades older than her physical body. She was born into magic, harnessed power beyond measure, she is the most powerful person Emma has ever known, the most controlled, and if that woman needs help with her emotions then Emma is surely damned.

The street blows powerful winds out of nowhere and the sky turns grey. 

“Please.” She’s all but begging now. “Go somewhere else.”

She could turn around and walk away, she could be the one to leave, but what she really needs is for him to be elsewhere. For everyone to be elsewhere. 

Her eyes soften as he backs away getting half way across the street before he turns his back and continues on his day with a visible hurry to his step. Emma doesn’t look away, making sure the distance grows as she takes one and then two steps backwards. 

And another. 

People should not have to run from her. She needs to find a place to hide. 

The back of her left ankle hits the curb and she steps up, feels the softness of earth and grass under her shoes. The only thing behind her now is an expanse of parkland that tapers off into forestry and beyond that a river and the toll bridge. 

Nobody can be hurt by her out there. 

Which means, of course, that the second she turns to begin running she runs smack into a person coming up behind her. She should have known he was there, should have heard his footfall or his breath or smelled him or something. 

Her hands fly up instinctively, to catch herself, to catch him, to lessen the crash, something. Certainly not to watch the red sparks sizzle as they escape and fly forward, hitting him in the chest and blowing him back onto his ass. 

“Killian!” She is frustrated and annoyed and panicked and half of her wants to rush over to him and the other half wants to continue eviscerating him for sneaking up on her. “Are you okay?”

So she settles for neither, curling her hands back into fists despite the burning it causes her. 

“Swan.” His reply is cautious and distant and painful. “Didn’t take long, did it?”

Her breath comes hot and fast and shallow and she looks for an escape route before she can meet his eyes. He’s different and she may be incredibly sensitive to the reactions of everyone around her, but it does not take a genius to notice. Gone is the cocky, charming swagger and the friendly glint in his eyes. Blue has gone from welcoming to cold and detached. 

“Hey Hook.” But she tries anyway, because everything is falling apart around her and she needs something, god she needs _someone_ on her side. “I haven’t seen you around.”

His scoff is loud and unmistakable as he scrambles back onto his feet. 

“You’re really going to pretend this isn’t happening?”

It comes out like a challenge, hostile like she hasn’t heard him since he had her pinned to the ground at Cora’s request fighting for her life. And she knows, she knows what is happening, she should walk away and let it go, but she can’t. 

“Let’s talk about this.” She’s begging and she’s weak and she’s just about beyond caring at this point. “Can we…?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” But he is firm and unwavering and she is sinking further. “I’ve seen what that bloody blade does to people. I watched the Dark One turn from a stumbling fool into a murderous fiend. I had to watch him kill the one woman I’ve ever loved.”

He’s heated and angry and disappointed and afraid, so afraid, she can practically smell it on him; it’s oozing out of his pores, shaking his voice, ever present in the tightly clenched hand at his side and the snarl of his lips. 

“And I’ll be bloody well damned if I stand here and watch it take you, too.”

Emma watches him turn and walk away from her. 

Always away. 

It comes out like a groan, the last straw of her sanity, building up like a fire in her blood. The light that surrounds her is red and murky and tumultuous, it swarms up her nostrils and invades her lungs like smoky molten anger. 

There’s a crash to her left and she feels rather than sees the lumbering electric pole tilt and fall to the ground, bringing with it sparking wires that hiss. A screech above her head is a bird that plummets suddenly and bounces with a sickening squish as it hits the ground that rumbles at her feet. 

There are footsteps and cries of people nearby and she is much too close to them, to the buildings, to the road and the cars and society. She needs to be away. She should continue out to the woods where she can’t hurt anyone, but it’s too late and a fissure opens at her feet, widening as it spreads across the tarmac and races towards the diner. 

A green car screeches, a sickening metal sound, as it spins wildly and then flips in the air. 

She can only hope it was empty. 

Her hands flicker, opening and closing helplessly, as heat begins to eat her up from the inside, an intolerable build-up of energy that wants to pour out of her and smother everything in existence. 

“Emma!”

Somebody is running towards her and she cannot even take a second to figure out who as her hand flies out and a bolt of electricity streams out, lifting them off their feet and throwing them backwards. 

She hadn’t meant to do that, she only wanted them to stay away. 

Emma runs, the energy pulsing out of her in a wave, lifting trees from the ground and making a path through the woods ahead of her. She would rather uproot plant life than kill innocent people. Twigs and grass and leaves create a storm of tiny whipping winds across her face and arms and neck, swirling in a vortex around her. 

“Stop.” The voice is hard and demanding and unshakable. “Emma, stop.”

It stops. It all stops. 

Everything falls to the ground and Emma sags, unable to do anything else as the pulsing, heated anger leaves her. 

“Please.” She realises she’s crying as her words shake and she doesn’t know what she’s begging for. “Regina, please.”

She can feel Regina walk up behind her, feel the singing of the blade in the woman’s hand. It should be fear, knowing that Regina holds her entire life in her hands, but all she feels is relief. 

“It’s alright.” Regina says. “Nobody was majorly hurt.”

Even now, Regina knows what she needs to hear, and Emma closes her eyes in defeat. She can feel the drop of her shoulders and spine, the sagging weight of exhaustion. It’s still morning, but she feels like she hasn’t slept in hours, if not days. 

“I can’t do this.”

She has said it before, but she has never felt it like this, laced through with Charming’s caring but suspicious eyes, Archie’s fear, Hook’s loathing, her own history. 

“You can.” 

Regina is closer now, almost close enough to touch, but there is no hand on her anywhere. Emma is grateful. Her head bows down and all she can see is broken ground at her feet, listening to the footsteps approach her. 

“Can’t you do anything?” More pleas. “Can’t you take it away?”

“Not without a lot of sacrifice.” The answer comes eventually, regretful and serious. “Before that happens, I want you to try to control it. I know you can, I trust you.”

Soft voice, firm words, Regina is speaking words anyone could, that she herself has thought. But from Regina, the words have meaning, they come from experience rather than expectation. 

There is an entire book that tells Emma Regina’s experience is perhaps not the best thing to aim for, but she has to believe in something, has to trust in someone to help her through this. Her entire life she has fought for herself, even against hopeless odds, but this time it is something in her blood she cannot fathom, cannot control, and is hurting everyone she loves. 

“Lock me up.” She insists. “Put me somewhere away.”

She thinks Regina will argue, expects it, is ready for the fight. Regina does not answer her with words, but Emma is enveloped in cool, purple magic before she can prod further. The smoke clears to reveal that they are in Regina’s vault. 

“No.” It’s out of her mouth before she can even turn around, panic setting back in. “Regina, no. I can’t. Not here. All these supplies.”

The magic in here is singing to her, a sickly sweet siren call. 

“You can.” Regina repeats, looking Emma in the eyes, reaching behind herself to slip the dagger into the waistband of her skirt before coming back empty handed, palms up. “And I will help you.”

Everyone has left her and Regina is the only one here, the only one who believes in her and she should be grateful, be very thankful. But everyone has left her and she knows, knows deep down, that eventually Regina will too. 

Her eyes narrow. 

“You’ll live to regret it.”

***


End file.
